Drug utilisation in a public health perspective: Establishing a national prescription register in Norway
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5324/nje.v11i1.534Abstract
ABSTRACT
No information about drug use at an individual level is available from the present Norwegian wholesale
statistics on drugs, i.e. who are using the medicines, for how long and in which doses. A new kind of
statistics is needed to focus on and analyse the use of medications from a public health perspective and
to evaluate other aspects of public health in relation to drug expenditures. To meet this need, the Ministry
of Health and Social Affairs has decided to establish a new national register based on computerised
prescriptions from all the pharmacies in Norway. The initiative to establish a more detailed drug
statistics came partly in response to changes in the infrastructure of the Norwegian Drug Market, which
started when Norway became a member of European Economic Association (EEA), in 1995. To regulate
and evaluate the impact of a country’s national drug policy with respect to the promotion of the
rational use of drugs, it is vital that the system designed to collect data about the consumption of
medicines is set up at the level of individual patients. This paper will focus on the planning and the
necessary steps to be taken for establishing a national database of drug prescriptions in Norway.
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